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Tuesday, 12 February 2019

TRAVEL TUESDAY #170 - RIO DE JANEIRO, BRASIL

“The most
beautiful thing about Brazil that I always find that is so unlike any other
place I've been in the world is the diversity of its people.” - Gisele Bündchen

Welcome to the Travel Tuesday meme! Join me every Tuesday and showcase your creativity in photography, painting and drawing, music, poetry, creative writing or a plain old natter about Travel.

There is only one simple rule: Link your own creative work about some aspect of travel and share it with the rest of us. Please use this meme for your creative endeavours only.

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Rio de Janeiro (‘River
of January’), or simply Rio, is the second-most populous municipality in Brazil
and the sixth-most populous in the Americas. Rio de Janeiro is the capital of
the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s third-most populous state. Part of the
city has been designated as a World Heritage Site, named “Rio de Janeiro:
Carioca Landscapes between the Mountain and the Sea”, by UNESCO on 1 July 2012
as a Cultural Landscape. Founded in 1565 by the Portuguese, the city was
initially the seat of the Captaincy of Rio de Janeiro, a domain of the
Portuguese Empire. Later, in 1763, it became the capital of the State of
Brazil, a state of the Portuguese Empire.

In 1808, when
the Portuguese Royal Court transferred itself from Portugal to Brazil, Rio de
Janeiro became the chosen seat of the court of Queen Maria I of Portugal, who
subsequently, in 1815, under the leadership of her son, the Prince Regent, and
future King João VI of Portugal, raised Brazil to the dignity of a kingdom,
within the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and Algarves.

Rio stayed the
capital of the pluricontinental Lusitanian monarchy until 1822, when the War of
Brazilian Independence began. This is one of the few instances in history that
the capital of a colonising country officially shifted to a city in one of its
colonies. Rio de Janeiro subsequently served as the capital of the independent
monarchy, the Empire of Brazil, until 1889, and then the capital of a
republican Brazil until 1960 when the capital was transferred to Brasília.

Rio de Janeiro
has the second largest municipal GDP in the country, and 30th largest in the
world in 2008, estimated at about R$343 billion (nearly US$201 billion). It is
headquarters to Brazilian oil, mining, and telecommunications companies,
including two of the country’s major corporations – Petrobras and Vale – and
Latin America’s largest telemedia conglomerate, Grupo Globo. The home of many
universities and institutes, it is the second-largest center of research and
development in Brazil, accounting for 17% of national scientific output according
to 2005 data. Despite the high perception of crime, the city has a lower
incidence of crime than Northeast Brazil, but it is far more criminalised than
the south region of Brazil, which is considered the safest in the country.

Rio de Janeiro
is one of the most visited cities in the Southern Hemisphere and is known for
its natural settings, Carnival, samba, bossa nova, and balneario beaches such
as Barra da Tijuca, Copacabana, Ipanema, and Leblon. In addition to the
beaches, some of the most famous landmarks include the giant statue of Christ
the Redeemer atop Corcovado mountain, named one of the New Seven Wonders of the
World; Sugarloaf Mountain with its cable car; the Sambódromo (Sambadrome), a
permanent grandstand-lined parade avenue which is used during Carnival; and Maracanã
Stadium, one of the world’s largest football stadiums.

Rio de Janeiro was the
host of the 2016 Summer Olympics and the 2016 Summer Paralympics, making the
city the first South American and Portuguese-speaking city to ever host the
events, and the third time the Olympics were held in a Southern Hemisphere
city. The Maracanã Stadium held the finals of the 1950 and 2014 FIFA World
Cups, the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, and the XV Pan American Games.

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Welcome to Nicholas V's Blog on Blogger

I have been blogging daily on this platform for several years now. It is surprising that I have persisted as the world is changing and "microblogging" is now the norm. I blog to amuse myself, make comment on current affairs, externalise some of my creativity, keep notes on things that interest me, learn something new and to surprise myself with things that I discover about this wonderful, and sometimes crazy, world we live in.

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